Mitt Romney’s School Days

NEW YORK (The Borowitz Report)—Today, presumptive G.O.P. nominee Mitt Romney released the following open letter to the American people:

Dear Friends:

This week, the Washington Post reported an incident from my high school days in which I bullied a gay classmate by pinning him to the ground and cutting his hair off. This story revealed a side of Mitt Romney that may have been surprising to many of you: the Mitt Romney with an irrepressible and hilarious sense of humor.

Some of you may say, “Hold on, Mitt—isn’t holding a kid down and cutting off his hair going a little far?” Well, the merry prankster in me tells me you can never go too far when it comes to giving the greatest gift of all: the gift of laughter. And I certainly remember many of us laughing long and hard about what I did to that Nancy-boy. Was it cruel? Perhaps, but it’s not like I tied him to the roof of a car or anything.

The Democrats have already tried to seize on this incident as evidence that I don’t like gays. That is a lie. I have nothing against gays. Except for the poor ones, of course. And as any of my high school chums can tell you, I did not go out of my way to pick on gay kids. I was also a total douche to many heterosexuals.

The fact is, boys will be boys. Who among us hasn’t shoved a crippled kid down a flight of stairs? That’s something else I did in those mischievous days, but the mainstream media isn’t reporting it because they want to turn this into an anti-gay thing. The fact is, when I was in high school I played pranks on everyone—blind kids, deaf kids, dwarves, and Jews. Although, come to think of it, I don’t think our school accepted Jews.

Now that I’ve put my actions into better context, I hope you’ll see this incident with the gay kid for what it was: innocent good fun. And I hope when you vote in November, you won’t judge me as the teen-ager who bullied one gay boy, but rather as the adult who fired thousands of people.

Vote for me,

Mitt Romney

Andy Borowitz is a New York Times best-selling author and a comedian who has written for The New Yorker since 1998. He writes the Borowitz Report for newyorker.com.